indi + rani = noe | kei

Death of Cliff Muntu as the tip of Plonco Culture Iceberg in Indonesia

The death of IPDN student is not surprising. In Indonesia, seniority is very much embedded into local education culture. I began to sense this when I enter junior high school, and as I moved up onto higher education in Indonesia, the sense of seniority is felt even more.

It is customary to go through rites of passage / initiation rites when one enter a new school in Indonesia, as well as entering extracurricular organizations in school. This initiation rite is governed by a basic rule that the seniors has more authority than the juniors, and that the juniors has less rights than the seniors. Oh I just found out from wikipedia that there is an English word for "plonco" and "ospek" which is "hazing". In the developed countries, hazing is considered as crime, and students involved in it are sent to jail. Wow, in this regards, Indonesia is so behind!

Let's go back to the hazing culture in Indonesia. The unwritten rules are to never question your seniors, and that the seniors always know better. And don't talk to your seniors unless they talk to you first.

It really tastes better than Kecap Bango

See wikipedia on Kecap.

Kecap Purwodadi
Mrs. Oei Hok Hoo or Ms. Eniwati
Toko Wijaya Baru, CV Sarana Cipta Kasih

Indi and Noe and Yodhi gave me a ticket to the best seat for West Side Story in Esplanade. I was really excited about that!

Oh this photo below was taken by Indi during his turn to watch WSS. He got the cheapest ticket but with best balcony view too.

We haven't been posting new entries recently because we're in Indonesia right now and connectivity is very limited. But Noe just said something that surprised me that I couldn't resist to post to the blog right now.

Today is the big day for Bimo. We woke up very early in the morning, since we had to arrive at the venue at 5.30am to dress up. Eyang putri bought Noe a set of Javanese traditional outfit, while uncle Eko bought a blangkon for Noe.

After the religious wedding oath ceremony, the event continued with javanese traditional wedding ceremony.

It's Bimo's shower ceremony, a traditional Javanese purification rite held one day before the wedding ceremony. I would let the photo essay talks.

This is the prayer session.

At 6am Ibu Wies picked us up for the Bandung trip. Noe was really enjoying the road trip. I was a bit freaked out because our driver Mr. Imam constantly took over from the left lane, including using the service lane.

Noe had a morning shower in an unconventional way.

Indi went for a game of golf with bapak Hindro early in the morning and went back home just before lunch. We decided to borrow a car from om Kono. We then drove to Pondok Indah Mall to have lunch with the Tobings at the Indonesian Restaurant at the third floor. I forgot the name, but this restaurant serves all kinds of Indonesian traditional food. When we arrived there we bought some dolls as gift for the Tobing babies. We also went to a CD store at the second storey, where we found Nial Djuliarso at Djulliard, er, I mean Julliard, for a fraction of a price compared to buying the CD in Singapore (from Marko).